


an epiphany of words

by macbethattempest



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Angst, Clintasha - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Fluff, History, Multi, Other, Post X-Men: First Class, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre X-Men: First Class, Red Room, Smut, WinterShock - Freeform, Words, pairings will be added on as I proceed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-25 15:06:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7537474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macbethattempest/pseuds/macbethattempest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(i) kairos<br/>(ii) saudade<br/>(iii) wabi-sabi</p><p>;stemming from words and based on pairings</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. kairos

**Author's Note:**

> All chapters will be based on a specific word and specific pairing and these words have been in my diary for me for a long time so let's see how this pans out.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Barnes and Darcy Lewis

**Kairos** (καιρός) **  
**  n. a propitious moment for decision or action

 

When James and Darcy first fucked, it was admittedly, simply scorching. 

It happened impulsively, under slight intoxication; and it was stars and lights and rough and bursts of energy; his metal hand trailing down her spine, her nails scratching his back in raw abandon, his teeth creating crescents in her flesh that lasted for days, her head thrown back, neck exposed, his frame slamming into her, their bodies meshed together, her breaths and his breaths measured by their rhythm and a structure of secrecy attached to this act of release; him from his mind, her from her body.

But they never kissed; not a single touch of lips to lips, the act too intimate to be performed between two people who were merely fucking.

It happened once, consensual yet capricious, and it would never happen again; an agreement of sorts.

And it happened again, a month after, in complete sobriety, and it was better; impulsive yet phenomenal in its ways and better than the last; their senses not contaminated by demon liquor, their instincts not dulled by the stream of numbing fluid running through their veins, just a touch of bodies set aflame.

One week later, in the middle of the night, when Darcy can't sleep, her body restlessly shuffling across the bed, her urge to purge out the food she's eaten too much, her bulimia nearing her limit, she hears her door open and a familiar silhouette breaks the shadow and she sighs in relief and she throws herself at the man, her body limp and wanton and he holds her and without stripping her off, turns his frame and pins her against the door and finds her entrance.

A zipper slides down and he fucks her there in her room in the darkness, and releases her urge and his fucked up mind and as they both climax in crescendo, their breaths blow across each other and their lips are in proximity to each other but they don't touch; they stay millimeters apart but they don't touch.

It's Darcy who finds him next, after lunch, when she's just vomited her guts out, standing in the corridor and pulls him into the corner booth and presses her body against him. She needs her body to feel not her and for her to not feel that deep worming shame. The dominant in him ignites at her fragile state and this time, he doesn't take pleasure, he bends down and Darcy looks at him in bewilderment. His knees hit the ground and he slowly winds her jeans down, her breath hitches, and his lips wreak havoc on her folds and stars dance before her eyes, it's a plethora of feelings wrapped into one and her legs fail her, her back hits the opposite wall and she clutches his hair. When she climaxes, it's like the brightest star in the night and he gets up and brushes his lips across her cheek and steps out of the stall. 

They don't see each other for a month and she knows he's in Chicago for a mission and he calls her to open the door to her room. And she does, her hands hesitant and she looks at him, little hesitance creeping into her frame and she stands at the door, looking at him, his rugged unshaven face, tall stature, hair bound back, dressed in black with a backpack around his shoulders and she waits.

And she waits.

"We need to heal", she speaks slowly in the silence, trying to maintain distance, and he keeps staring at her and then he swallows deeply, his eyes fixed on hers and he takes a step forwards, into the room, dropping his bag on the floor, getting into her space. "Later."

She wakes up in the morning and she cannot move; her body is exquisitely sore and her bones feel liquid. Her mind is a flash of bodies, hands and sensations. She turns her head to find the bed empty, an indent on the pillow next to hers and her hand rises to touch the imprint of his teeth on the nape of her neck and up to feel her lips 

No kiss.

It becomes a weekly thing. Once a week, she goes to his quarters and he comes to hers and he fucks her into oblivion, and she touches him and holds him and feels him and releases.

And then it becomes much more. Its everyday and what they hold, if it is something at all, treads a fine line between intimacy and fucking; and she can feel it transform into intimacy; it's not just a wham bam sorry ma'am, it's his lips whispering words in her ears, it's his eyes that make contact with her as he stays inside her, it's the way he holds her when they're finally done, an unspoken consent that he starts to sleep over and it's her hands that find their place in his hair, it's her legs that entwine with his completely, it's her head that cuddles into his shoulder.

And it's in the way, one night, when he's about to leave for a long mission and it's a fuck that's supposed to carry them on for the next two months that she's lying supine on the bed and he's standing by it, and the slight dawn is peeking from the askew window curtains from where they'd clutched them in the night and she's looking at him and he's looking at her and she rises up a little and it is as if this moment is a breaking point, fracturing him. 

He bends low and pulls her up against him, his hands finding purchase in her back, and she weaves her hand through his hair and their lips are inches from each other and Darcy can feel it, _the delicacy of the moment, a dream taking flight,_

and

they

_kiss._

_It's the perfect, delicate, crucial moment;_

_the fleeting rightness of time and place._

It's stunning,

it's bright,

it's James

and 

Darcy

and 

Darcy 

and

James.

_It's kairos._

 

 

 

 

 


	2. saudede

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha Romanoff, James Barnes, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton and Alyona Popov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first Natasha fic. And I really loved writing this. Please do review.

**Saudade**  
n. a nostalgic longing for something or someone that was loved and lost,  
"the love that remains"

 

Natasha's memory is a an unfaltering sea of gold; a pool that never fails her, even if she wants it to.

She remembers being eleven and being absolutely, completely and utterly infatuated. **Alyona Popov** was Natasha Romanoff's bunk bed sharer, class mate and quite possibly-for a time when Natasha had an ounce of naivety in her body-the love of her life. The golden blonde hair that blew on Alyona's back, the way she twisted her Russian, the way she treated people-with humility that was tinged with a quite dignity-the way she fought the fellow girls, always impressing Madame B with her rigid demeanor. Natasha had been in awe of her from the very beginning-when she'd been nine and Alyona eleven and Natasha had just entered the Red Room-but it was once when she was stumbling back to her room, her knees bruised and hand broken from physical combat that she'd seen Alyona sitting with a nine year old girl and consoling the crying lass with soft words, and Natasha had fallen in love.

She'd never had the courage to talk to her but she'd watched from afar, breathless and enraptured.

Then Natasha had turned eleven and everything had changed. Combat became lethal, fights became guttural and Natasha fired her first shot and made her first kill, firing a bullet at a body covered in rags. She came back to her room that day and stared at the wall, and felt numbness spread inside. She could feel it; she could feel the potency of everything she was going through

yet

 _she couldn't feel it_. 

She promised herself she'd tell Alyona how she felt the next day; she was high on endorphin borne from death and she would tell her before the Red Room could sap her of all her emotions. And she woke up in the morning, determined and set, and walked into her class where Madame B called her in front of everybody and patted her on the back, and proclaimed, "It is she who killed the faulty! Celebrate!" And Natasha had looked from face to face, and felt a surge of pride in her bones and she'd looked for a particular one in a rank of girls, some faces tinged with envy, some with awe and some with nothing at all; she'd looked for Alyona but Alyona hadn't been there.

It was later in the night when she found a new girl shifting into her room that she learned _Alyona_ had been the faulty one, _Alyona_ had been the body in the rags.

Alyona'd been found kissing another girl, something strictly prohibited for emotion was a vice and something that these women couldn't afford,

and something in Natasha had died and she knew then that Madame B knew and

this was her _punishment_ , and,

this was her _development_.

Natasha remembers being seventeen and being infatuated yet again with a man she could never have. She remembers how along with the Black Widows, the Red Room had become the training ground for the Wolf Spider Program, with a trainer capable beyond means: **The Winter Soldier** and she remembers how she'd felt the faint stirrings of lust and desire when she'd seen him fight and she'd felt mildly repelled; how had she become _so twisted_ that him fighting generated a response in her that no man had yet ever elicited. 

And she'd looked at him from the corners of her eyes, passing by corridors or moving through ranks and she could swear that she'd seen him look back at her once or twice but she'd kept her mouth and feelings shut;

she was _no one_ and he was _someone,_ and

 _nobody_ and _somebody_ did not mix, until that nobody hadn't created a path for itself in the world.

She'd turned eighteen and she'd begun her graduation ceremony and it had been a year of secrecy and looking through masks and murder and death and blood and she'd finally been free; free to create a blood trail of her own in the world.

She'd searched for him in the free world, reaching high places and making indispensable connections, curating contacts and a name for herself: not _a_ Black widow, she was _the_ Black Widow. But she'd never found him; a ghost leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

The Soldier had disappeared and with him, so had her search.

Natasha remembers being twenty five and meeting **Clint Barton** in Budapest. She'd felt an instant attraction, a meeting of similar minds and she'd begun to hope a little; maybe, _maybe_ , this time it works.

And then Budapest had become a clusterfuck, everything going wrong, disasters at every point and Clint had taken them to a safe house. 

And she'd found a pregnant Laura and his two kids there and she'd felt a _second_ of heartbreak and then she'd firmly shut the door on her feelings; she couldn't afford to lose a valuable friend like Clint. So she'd willingly slipped into the role of a trusted friend, an ally and an aunt, foregoing whatever she thought could happen, and curling into herself.

Natasha remembers being thirty and she remembers a slow burn; a new feeling to her for she'd never experienced what it was like to _like_ somebody and to dance around them while they dance around you, words and innuendos at play and a hesitation and exhilaration of the final reveal. She'd _never_ felt this way for anyone before and **Bruce Banner** had made her feel this way; like a giddy teenage girl, high on dopamine, talking in sky looks and veiled words.

And she'd rejoiced. 

 _Finally._  

She'd reveled in the new and peculiar sensations, she'd reveled in the power she had over him, that her touch could bring him back to humanity, she'd reveled in the feelings she'd had.

They had been together for a short time, a time of battle in Sokovia, but it had been joyous nonetheless. He had come to save her, and she'd brought out his alter ego, something she thought was smart at that time. She regretted it now. She hadn't accurately assessed Bruce's mental state-his depression too strong to set aside-something she would never have failed at if her feelings hadn't come into play, and she'd stared at the screen that had gone black and in that moment, she'd realized that she'd fallen. 

She'd fallen _hard_.

Natasha stands in a dinghy motel bathroom now, in her bra and panties, long red hair to her waist, now black with the dye soaking through them; a new identity again.

That's all it takes: a cheap dye job and a set of different clothes and the chameleon changes its colors as fast as lightening.

She breathes in the pungent scent of dye, separated from everybody, neither on Steve's side nor on Tony's; _the shadow in the civil war_. 

And she remembers. 

As she moves from place to place, a vagabond on the go, with nobody by her side but memories and

she remembers faces and feelings and a small longing takes root in her,

longing for people,

and it's bitter,  _oh so very bitter,_

for she knows they may _never_ return.

 

 

 

 


	3. wabi-sabi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik Lensherr/ Magneto, Charles Xavier/ Professor X and Raven Darkholme/Mystique

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never written Magneto, Professor X and Raven before but I thought this word really suited them and hence I commenced with this. Also, this takes on from after the X Men First Class storyline when Raven has joined The Brotherhood of Mutants with Erik and features some pre-First Class moments too.

**Wabi-sabi  
** n. the discovery of beauty in imperfection 

 

There's a strip of orange that trails down her spine, little puckered and crooked, which curls around her waist and then descends down the inside of her right thigh right to the end of her foot. It's unnoticeable, especially when she's almost always wearing clothes.

A cluster of dots darker than the blue that's the color of her skin smatter the inside of her wrists, the hollow of her back, her entire feet up to her ankle and the tip of her nose. They're nearly invisible against her skin, except in bright light, but bright light's a no go; nobody is ever able to look past her blue skin and not flinch.

A pattern of lines and crosses go down the valley of her breasts and embroider her waist, twisting and turning. She calls them "Picasso's creation" and laughs bitterly; people call them "ugly" and laugh bitterly.

Her hair is bright orange; startling against a human face, and nearly horrifyingly startling against a blue one. "Burnt orange" is what the actual color is called, not that anybody-including Raven-cares.

Her eyes are the most startling yellow, like a cat. The only redeeming quality she sees is the fact that they don't shine in the night when light falls on them. 

Her nails are a dark grey and longer than normal, extending beyond her fingertips at average height. And they feel like talons, like a wild animal's claws made to kill.

 

It is a conundrum, _Raven_ thinks, how her abilities are nearly limitless in their abilities-and to power hungry humans, that must be something they would always want to cash upon-yet they choose to see her appearance and be repelled by it. 

\----

There's a thin strand of orange twisted around Raven's body that he's never seen fully but only got glimpses of when he first helped her change her clothes after she injured herself badly when she fell while learning a cycle for the first time. It's kind of fascinating, he thinks, the colors on her body and the way they act as marks of the true uniqueness of her DNA.

Her skin is a strange blue with darker edges. He notices it when he's around eighteen and Raven sometimes steps into the light while she's blue. He studies it; a clue to their mutation.

Scale-like marks wind down her body but he doesn't know what they are yet. He's in the process of finding a cure to the disappearance of those scales and he's touched them and he knows they feel like hard stone and rigid rock; not very touchable. She calls them "Picasso's creation" and laughs bitterly; he calls out an "it's okay" to her and smiles understandingly.

Her hair is a bright beacon against her skin and him and her have tried making her stay in her blue form while taking on the blonde colored hair of her human form but it has never really worked, even after his mental assistance and so they just let it be.

Her eyes are a bright yellow that sometimes make him feel as if his every moment is being seen. He never says this to her and he's silently thankful that she can change her eye color to a brown similar to his.

Her nails are long and grey and he has often gotten injured accidentally. When it happens the fourth time and he starts bleeding, she starts to cut them regularly-once a week, for they grow very fast-and its better then.

It is a conundrum, _Charles_ thinks, that such extraordinary mutancy could be exhibited in such a grotesque way and that yes maybe, power does have a price.

\----

A thin orange ribbon marks across her body, something nearly not visible and unexpected, something so utterly unique that he catches his breath the first time he sees it. A soft trail winding its path down her body, twisting elegantly and tying up at her leg; adding to her exquisiteness.

She's not entirely the shade of blue that is visible at first sight. Her feet and wrists and the tip of the nose are tinged with a darker navy blue, giving her the finesse of an artist's perfect muse. He spends his time on them, studying her body in the sunlight, his fingers tracing each dot and wonder coloring his mind.

A pattern of lines and crosses go down the valley of her breasts and embroider her waist, nearly artistic in their beauty, an inscription to a language not found yet. She calls them "Picasso's creation" and laughs bitterly; he calls them "Picasso's creation" and smiles infatuatedly. 

Her hair is not the bright orange people make out it to be. It's a dark brown on the roots that descends to a deep red as it grows and the tips are a bright red. Erik's hands find home in this hair, and he looks at his fingers, so completely normal in contrast to her uniqueness.

Her eyes are a rare shade of yellow, the iris a little darker than the pupil. They are nearly feline in their quality; a gaze that causes you to feel as if you're under laser focus, a gaze that completely captures you. 

Her nails are graphite in their shade and long, their edges curved and soft, and as they scratch along Erik's back in reckless abandon, his teeth find her neck and marks imprint their body; beauty in mutuality. 

 

It is a inevitable, _Erik_ thinks, for such extraordinary powers could only exist with such a unique beauty; powers like his were accompanied merely by a mortal body whereas hers is the body of art.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> All the love.


End file.
